60 Religious Enlist into Israel Air Force Hareidi Unit

By the end of the year, 400 hareidi men will have entered the IAF in its Shahar Kahol program.

By Arutz Sheva

 

Amid great tensions over hareidi enlistment, about 60 hareidi soldiers joined the ranks of the IAF Tuesday as part of the Shahar Kahol project, writes the IAF Website.

The new recruits will be integrated into a variety of professions and roles in the IAF, including programmers in the IAF’s Ofek computer unit, software inspectors, network administrators and information security professionals, certified electricians, mechanical engineering equipment operators and technicians.

After about three weeks’ basic training at the Uvda base, they will begin courses at the College of Management Academic Studies, after which they will receive professional certificates.

“All of the training for hareidi soldiers is carried out separately, in gender-segregated battalions in which the soldiers receive all they need for living their religious way of life,” explained the IAF’s Captain Moshe Prigan.

By the end of 2014, about 400 young hareidi men will have joined the IAF in the Shahar Kahol project, which is meant to benefit both the IAF and the hareidi sector. Two new positions have recently been opened up to Shahar Kahol enlistees: the first is that of application developer, in cooperation with Microsoft, and the second is that of intelligence investigator.

Daniel Gozlan, 24, who is married with a 5-month-old baby girl, was among those who enlisted Tuesday, and is to serve as a certified electrician after undergoing training.

“I am glad that the military enables people like me to enlist and study a proper profession, and serve while maintaining our lifestyle,” he told the IAF Website.

The issue of hareidi enlistment has seen great tensions over the past year amid an Enlistment Law forcing the hareidi draft which has been strongly opposed. More recently the question of enlistment has been cast in further doubt given the Knesset debate on the “religionization” of the IDF, which former IDF Chief Rabbi Brig.-Gen. (res.) Rabbi Avichai Ronski condemned as being anti-Semitic.

 

View original Arutz Sheva publication at: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/188251#.VIFML8nVIn4